Implications of 'Data as Infrastructure': Governance and Citizenship in Smart Urbanism

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Since I aim for an academic career, this fellowship provides an excellent opportunity to strengthen my qualifications as an early career researcher. In order to realise this, DDH would be an excellent environment for me, as it stands for outsanding expertise on critical data studies. Besides the fact that 'data worlds' is one of their core research topics, the department also fosters close collaborations with the GLA regarding data research - providing the perfect environment for the further development of my research. My research focuses on (open) data-driven practices, initiatives and discourses in the context of smart city planning in London. Since smart cities have been widely studied within the sub-disciplines of geography, my research fills a gap in the literature by keeping digital media studies and Science and Technology Studies (STS) as a focal point, while also drawing upon geographical literature. Rather than encapsulating smart cities as a project concocted and imposed by corporate forces, I discuss those initiatives that co-develop within a network of relations that is always in-formation as part of London governance. The novelty of my framework enables me to offer insight into the urgent issue of data-driven governance, by grounding itself on a comprehensive study of London in terms of data-driven infrastructure, discourse and citizenship acts. My research locates smart cities and data-driven governance within the wider debates of digital culture, by tracing a historical lineage to the relation between cybernetics and urban planning, thus contributes to studying "actually existing smart cities" (Shelton et al. 2014). Additionally, the reason I focus on open data in particular is the fact that it was implemented within smart London policies in order to create a "citizen-centric" city. However, following others who have raised questions regarding the benign nature of "openness" and open data (see Bates 2013; Tkacz, 2012; Worthy, 2015), and scrutinizing it in the urban context, I show that, due to its contingent and political nature, opening up public data does not inexorably yield a more transparent and participatory city. My research is an important contribution to understand how data technologies and initiatives are enacted, materialised and reiterated in the urban context. I want to use this fellowship as an opportunity to develop high-impact publications, in order to communicate my findings to academic users. This involves the publication of two articles in high-ranking journals (e.g. Big Data & Society and Environment and Planning D: Society and Space), and two working papers to be presented at high-profile international conferences (AAG and EASST). At the end of the fellowship I aim to secure a book contract from a prestigious academic publisher (e.g. The MIT Press, Polity, Routledge). In addition to academic publications, this fellowship provides an excellent opportunity for me to expand my academic networks and raise my profile by attending international conferences. In pursuit of developing my future research and for knowledge exchange, I want to organise a research visit to world's most prominent organisations in data research, Data &Society and AI Now in New York. During the same trip, I will also be hosted at The New School.Besides academic audiences, my research heavily resonates with practitioners in data technologies, urban planners and policymakers in local governments, and to the Industrial Strategy ("AI & Data Economy" theme). In order to realise the potential for policy impact, I want to use this fellowship to disseminate my work to urban planners, technologists and policymakers, through collaborations with non-profit intermediary organisations and think tanks working in the field (e.g. Future Cities Catapult, Open Data Insitute [ODI], smart city planning committee at the GLA, Cybersalon).